Until Next Time
by Mydriasis
Summary: The five times Sinding meets the Dragonborn.
1. Chapter 1

The first time he met her, she was a visitor.

Her arrival was heralded by her scent, which lanced through the dank smell of mildew in his cell and the acrid tang of unwashed bodies and discarded food from the barracks above. She smelled like sweet woodsmoke, traveler's sweat and traildust, and something he couldn't put his finger on but that crackled across his tongue like lightning and settled in the back of his throat to smolder like embers. He would later learn it was the smell of dragonfire.

It had taken some time for her to be allowed to visit Falkreath's most infamous prisoner, and Sinding could hear the muffled voices of the guards interviewing her through the floorboards above him. She was finally granted leave to the cells in the basement, and when the door closed behind her, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end and the deep ache of primordial fear settled in his stomach. He was cloyed by the uncanny burning smell, and it made the beast bear its teeth and snarl and tuck its tail. This was not a person who might bring him water and pity and grace. The guards had shut the door to the barracks for their own protection; they thought they had locked the woman in with the beast, allowing her to risk death and worse if he got loose of his cell. The guards were wrong though, Sinding knew, watching with the eyes of a trapped rabbit as the visitor approached his cell. He was locked in with her.

She leaned against the bars of his cell door, looking at him with mild interest. Her face was calm, neutral, not quite pretty with its deep indigo warpaint and a single, ragged scar that started at her temple and ended at her chin, tearing a small crater in the tender flesh of her lips, though Sinding kept his distance as his heart thumped a rapid tattoo against his ribs. He recognized her almost immediately, as if anyone in any of the holds could mistake her; the Dragonborn. She had the imposing build of a Nord, as well as the wheat color of the hair, swept up in a multitude of tights braids and knots. At her side, an unadorned sword, well-maintained and well-used. Her left hand, clutching the iron bars of his cell door, showed the wear of magic use, the fingers blackened and frost-bitten with wielding cryomancy. Spellswords were not well-respected by Skyrim's indigenous people, and the jokes and jabs that Sinding had heard in pubs came unbidden to his mind.

It was the eyes, he realized, skulking to the back wall of his cell when he caught her inspecting him just as he had been her. He felt exposed and vulnerable with her eyes on him, ice-chip blue and considering him, calculating his pitfalls and how to exploit them and searing with the knowledge of eons. Predator's eyes, he thought, though no sabre cat nor fellow Wolf he'd ever known had such a commanding gaze. For the first time since he had been bitten-years ago, a decade or more-he was not the most dangerous creature in the room. He could feel the ache in his skull as the beast rankled at this new threat, unsure of what to make of her.

"Did you really kill that little girl?" she asked suddenly, after endless minutes of silence. It startled him, and he was about to snap back at her, tell her it was none of her business, but what poured out instead was his entire testament, the story from the very beginning to where he was standing ankle-deep in the fetid water of Falkreath's prison-well. When he would think back to it, Sinding would not know why he told her; perhaps it was some byproduct of his muted panic, some Kynareth-determined response of a lesser beast submitting to its superior, perhaps he just wanted someone to believe him and this drifter seemed as likely as any. So he told her about the stealing of Hircine's ring, how it had helped at first. He told her about the woodcutter's generosity, giving a stranger food and clothes and steady work. He told her, shame and anger lilting his voice, about Hircine's punishment for his sins, how the transformation had taken him in the middle of his work with poor, sweet Lavinia sitting nearby, keeping him company as she liked to do on sunny days. He told her about how he awoke, naked and confused and covered in sticky-sweet gore, surrounded by guards with swords at his throat and the sound of Mathies's wailing and Indara's wracking sobs ringing in his ears.

"I didn't mean to," he begged, approaching the door of his cell, "it was nothing I wanted. I was trying to keep everyone safer, with the ring, and by the Nine I wish I had never taken this accursed thing." He grasped the bars of the door, expecting her to sneer and recoil. She stayed slumped lazily against the door, the fingers of her frostbitten hand picking at the rust of the bars, and up close those fearsome eyes looked like they belonged in the hallowed eye sockets of some terrible Whispmother. He had to stop himself from looking away; everyone in all the holds loved the Dragonborn, he heard she's slayed Dragon Priests and picked lettuces for farmers and everything in between, surely she could help him, the bedraggled rotten soul he is.

Her gaze dropped down to his white-knuckle grip on the iron bars, and slowly she brought a frost-blackened fingertip to caress the ring on his right hand. A small token, a simple iron band with a carved wolf's head, its eyes inset with two garnet chips. The cool kiss of her cryomancer's hand made him shiver as she prodded at the ring and the skin of his finger around it. Perhaps she was checking it for bad magic, perhaps she was just admiring it. He didn't know, but he held his breath as she looked back up at him, taking her hand away from his.

"I could help you," she said, as breezily as one might when they offered to help muck stables. "I could return it to Hircine, ask him to bestow his favor on you."

"Would that you could," Sinding gulped, trying to quell the bubbling brook of hope that burst at her offer. "The Daedra don't take personal slights lightly. Asking won't help, even if you say _please._ He requires payment, with interest."

She snorted then and rolled her eyes, and the childish response was so misplaced on a warrior of her caliber that it irked him. "I would ask that you don't try to tell me about the Daedra," she said dryly, and Sinding wondered about those far-fetched stories of the Dragonborn meddling in the affairs of Meridia, of Malacath, of Clavicus Vile.

He apologized and told her about the Great Beast that would win her an audience with Hircine, a magnificent white stag that had evaded hunters for centuries, if the old stories could be believed. She nodded once, and held out her hands to him, cupped to protect the precious artifact that had been his undoing.

With shaking hands, he slid off the ring-and to his mild surprise it came off easily, no longer bound to his finger with the strength of old magic, perhaps eager to leave poor, weak Sinding and find a stronger host in the Dragonborn. Reaching through the iron bars, he dropped the accursed thing in her palms and covered her hands with his, closing her fingers around it. The startling contrast of the warm flesh of her sword hand and the chill of her magic hand was apparent under his palms as he beseeched her to be careful.

He felt the Beast, finally free of the bounds that Hircine's artifact had wrapped it in, begin to flex its power and vie for control. It was with barely-won clarity that he saw her slip the ring on and gasp softly from the power she no doubt felt thrumming from it.

"Thank you," he half-spoke with a bestial garble, even as he felt his flesh melt and tear to yield to the coarse black fur of the Wolf. He tasted blood as fangs sprouted from the roots of his jaw, forcing his blunt human teeth out of their places, was enshrouded in that noxious black aura as his change overtook him completely until it wasn't him peering at the woman through the bars of the jail, but the Beast. Even with the all-encompassing need to run and rend and feed after so long locked in that flesh-prison, the Wolf could taste the crackling burn and leveled with those icy blue predator's eyes, and knew that an easier meal waited for it. So, with claws that clacked and scraped the soft brick, it scaled the well and burst through the grate at the top. Amidst the screams of terrified towns, the startled squawking of birds, the hoof beats of pursuing guards' horses that could never hope to outpace it, the Wolf ran and ran and ran and left Falkreath far behind.


	2. Chapter 2

The second time Sinding met her, she was a hunter.

The Wolf had ran through the cool forests until its legs ached, stalked and killed elk and bear until its saliva ran red with blood, reveling until it finally had its fill of freedom and shrank back into the form of a man, sated for the time being. Sinding himself was exhausted from the ordeal, sick from the meat that distended his abdomen, but he continued to stumble forward, desperate to find a place to enshroud himself from civilization. If he could find somewhere to hide, he thought, he would never harm anyone again, and he could live silently with his shame where no one could be hurt.

Without warning, the world fell silent and his head, drooping from exhaustion, snapped to attention, his eyes staring unseeingly into the distance as he waited. It was as if an invisible leash had been tightened around his neck, and the neck of every poor soul in Tamriel who was made to share their bodies with a Beast. Hircine, the Hunter Prince and Father of Werebeasts, was walking on Nirn, seeking an audience with some unfortunate mortal, and his children were attuned his presence, awaiting the command of their master. In the back of his mind, the small part not overtaken by animal obedience, knew the Dragonborn had slain the white stag and was jockeying for Sinding's freedom.

As quickly as it had started, it was over, the hold of Hircine released as if the string had been cut by a knife. The Prince had returned to his Hunting Grounds, and Sinding collapsed on the ground in a panting, sweating pile, trying to recover from the trance that had held him like a bowstring pulled taut by an archer. He lay on the ground, slowly catching his breath, wondering if the Dragonborn had won his freedom. Above him, the slowly rising moon was bleeding red in a way that was not caused by the vivid sunset. That was his answer. Dragging himself to stand onto shaking, sore legs, he resumed his frantic search for a hiding place, wondering how long it would take for the hunters to track him.

They hadn't been long behind him, the hunters who served their Lord Hircine, and he was scarcely in his newfound grotto for three days before he heard the gentle echoes of stalking feet, the murmur of hunters, the rustling of a camp being made at the mouth of the grotto to bar his escape. It was only an hour after that an iron-tipped arrow whizzed past him, grazing the slope of his shoulder, and then Sinding allowed the Beast to begin its own hunt in earnest. It had slaughtered the ones that had set up camp, though Sinding knew more were coming fast on their heels to replace them. It was a rare treat, to be offered a hunt by Hircine, and more than a few hunters would be ready to skin him and present it to their Lord, awaiting anointment as a Champion.

It startled and wounded him when he caught that familiar scent on the breeze, and he tried not to let the ache of betrayal distract him. He confronted her at the mouth of the grotto, watching from his perch on the great outcroppings of rock as she checked the prone bodies of Hircine's hunters for signs of life. She had her sword drawn and in her other hand the flurries of ice magic danced in her palm, icy flakes twirling betwixt her fingers, waiting patiently to be channeled at an enemy. She looked startled when he talked, a man's voice coming from the body of a grotesque wolf, and he demanded to know where her loyalties lay. He scarcely allowed himself to hope they would still lie with him, though he would never admit it to her.

"Let the hunters become the hunted, friend." She called up, raising her sword to him in a show of good faith and allegiance, disappearing swiftly through the stone labyrinth of the grotto to meet him. It was hard-fought, and it became apparent that Hircine had not bothered to send any but his best hunters to retrieve the hide of the wolf-thief. Sinding had heard the bards weave grand tales and songs about the Dragonborn's battle prowess, but he would had never thought he'd be able to see it up close. It was a treat, if one could consider it like that, and he had never seen a person more furious, more tenacious than the Dragonborn engaged with a foe. More than once, watching her cut down hunters larger and faster and stronger than she, did Sinding thank the Gods that she was hunting with him, not for him.

Only after three consecutive sweeps of the expansive grotto turning up empty did they dare believe that Hircine had tired of the game. Above them, the moon loomed large and bright, and by degrees seemed to be draining of the terrible red hue of the Bloodmoon. The Dragonborn sheathed her sword with a throaty sigh, clutched the blackened fingers of her magic-hand to warm up her perpetually cold digits. Sinding felt the Wolf's fatigue and welcomed the sensation of the great wiry pelt of the Beast sloughing off him in waves, leaving him in his man's flesh again. He sat heavily on the ground, surrounded by his discarded fur, trying to calm his frantic panting.

They sat in silence for some time, the Dragonborn sipping on the vibrant red dregs of a healing potion and watching her wounds knit closed. Sinding knew he should say something, but words failed him. How does one thank the chosen bearer of the Thu'um for saving his hide twice in as many weeks? His mother never taught him these sort of niceties when he was a boy.

"What came of your audience with Hircine?" he asked, though he fancied he already knew the answer.

"He called the Hunt and instructed me to skin you and bring him your pelt as recompense for your crime," the Dragonborn said casually, as if she were asked to bring bread home from the market. Sinding wondered again about those stories that seemed too grand to be true-the Dragonborn vanquishing the shade of Potema, the Dragonborn single-handedly exterminating a Vampire nest, the Dragonborn astride a golden-scaled dragon in the manner a man rides a horse. Perhaps Hircine's request _was_ comparatively droll.

"He will be displeased with the outcome," he said, letting the _thank you_ die on his tongue. He wasn't sure thank you would be enough, and it was all he had, but he was too ashamed to offer it.

She shrugged and scoffed, taking another sip of the healing potion. "I am not a stranger to the ire of Daedra, or jarls, or common folk." She truly did not seem particularly concerned, so he didn't press the issue. If there was a person on Nirn who could withstand an angry Prince, Sinding was sure it was her.

Silence stretched between them again as they rested from their vigorous hunt. Sinding sat quietly in repose, letting the cool breeze blowing from the stream refresh him, while the Dragonborn rebraided the bits of her pale hair that had been knocked loose during her many fights. Finally, as the moon reached its usual ghostly white, she turned to him.

"I'm afraid I must be off," she told him, nodding politely as if he were a shopkeep who had purchased her wares. "I have business in Dawnstar that seems to be very pressing, and I promised to be there by tomorrow." She reached her hand down, the flesh of her sword-hand warm and rough as it lightly grasped his shoulder. "Take care, Sinding. Until next time," she said warmly, a fond smile stretching the rough flesh of her scar.

So tired, and relieved, and full to bursting with gratitude, it was all Sinding could do to look up and choke out, "The same to you." She patted him once, twice, and then she was off, striding purposefully through the gore and splatter of their hunt. Sinding laid back, cushioned by the oily fur of the beast's shucked coat, and stared up at the pale moon in a stupor.

He was lulled into a doze by the babbling of the stream, the sweet twittering of birdsong, the steady rhythm of the Dragonborn's retreating footsteps, only to be forcefully awakened by the feeling of a choker being pulled around his neck. His body jolted upright on its own accord and his ears strained, his eyes staring unseeing but ready to act on the command of his master. Hircine was on Nirn once again, and the Beasts of the land were waiting with bated breath for the opportunity to heed their master's call. Dimly, in the back of his mind that still rebelled against the hold of the Hunter Prince, Sinding thought of the Dragonborn, how she disobeyed a direct order from Hircine, how the Daedra do not take personal insults lightly.

As soon as he felt the invisible line broken by Hircine's departure, he was on his feet, half-stumbling and half-sprinting past the bodies of his fallen foes to scramble towards the throat of the grotto. He burst out into the chill of the Skyrim wilderness, expecting to see evidence of the wrath of Hircine, bracing himself to see the broken body of a woman who dared defy the Master of the Hunt. He looked around frantically, strained his ears for the sounds of battle or worse, but blood and war cries were conspicuously absent from the still beauty of the tundra. Instead, ahead on the road, he saw a well-armored woman heading northward, her braided blonde head bowed slightly to inspect a small silver token in her hand. He heaved a sigh of relief, leaned against the rough stone of the mountain, and watched her until she was a dark speck on the road. He turned then and returned to the safety of the grotto, his battered body insisting on rest.


	3. Chapter 3

The third time he met her, she was a Wolf.

It had taken every bit of self-control he had, but Sinding had kept his solitary vigil, away from towns and holds and even roads when he could help it. The quiet was terrible. He'd go weeks without hearing another person's voice, having only the birdsong and the wind through the trees for conversation. He'd see a soldier on the road, or a traveling company, and his heart would ache for companionship. He'd been tempted to go, to barter a merchant for his wares or request a song from a bard, but a brief flash of him in Falkreath, sticky with Lavinia's blood and clutching her ropey intestines in his hand, would send him scuttling back into the deep reaches of his grotto. It was for the best, he reassured himself, and that is how he kept himself sequestered until the mild autumn turned into a glorious, vicious Skyrim winter, which waned into a beautiful spring.

He had tried to keep the Beast contained until the full moon forced his hand every month, but it was wily and willful and sometimes got the best of him. Sinding would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy the Wolf's cavorting on occasion; running at pace with the winds that whipped fast and cold from the north, feasting on venison that steamed in the cool night air, answering the calls of the other children of Hircine who were equally at the whims of their Beasts. It was a brief taste of freedom, lived vicariously through the slitted amber eyes of the Wolf, that brought Sinding his greatest pleasures. At night, when the beast-blood roiled in his veins and refused to let him rest, he would wonder if he let the Beast go so often because of the joy it brought him. He'd never think about it for long.

It was on some spring morning-Sinding had long lost count of the days-that he had caught the whiff of something that was not welcome in the sanctity of the grotto. He was no stranger to intruders. Bandits often tried to make their hideaway in the rocky outcrops, unaware that a resident worse than any Hold guard waited for them. This one was different, though. Far from the unwashed, alcohol-breathed sting of bandits and vagabonds, this smelled simultaneously of a city and the wild, something familiar that flittered along his palate, but buried deep under the scent of wool blankets, traildust, and a pack of Wolves. Sinding bristled, the blunt fingernails of his hands clutching at the tree he had been harvesting berries from. It smelled like four wolves, perhaps more, a pack come to challenge him. His own Beast, heady and invigorated by a particularly long romp just the night before, bayed and howled and gnashed its teeth ferociously, fighting to be let out, wanting to meet the interlopers at war. Sinding wilted at the thought of challenging Wolves as himself, and saw no recourse, and gave himself over the searing heat of ripping tendons and a sprouting tail.

He saw not a pack, but a solitary woman, armored in iron and studded pelts, her pale blonde hair swept out of her face in numerous braids, stealing around the throat of the grotto cautiously. She carried the smell of Wolves on her, and now that he was in range he recognized the burning crackle of her fire. Perhaps she saw the movement as he perched the peak of a high boulder, for she whipped around the face him, staring up at him with smudged indigo paint around her eyes and cheekbones. Sinding was relieved to see her, but the Wolf, staring down at her from higher ground and thinking only of the tender meat that hid behind her armor, did not yield to him. It growled at the visitor, even as Sinding clamored for control.

"Sinding," she called up, voice light and warm. "It's just me. No need for this."

Sinding agreed, but the Wolf, too accustomed to having its way these past months, snapped its jaws at her and bared its teeth, ropey rivulets of saliva webbing its jowls as it began to stalk down the face of the boulder. Sinding, panicked now, began to scrap in earnest for control over his shared body.

"Sinding," the Dragonborn said forcefully, all light-heartedness gone from her tone. "Stop now." Her hand lingered on the hilt of her sword and the dancing crystals of ice magic began to swirl from her palm, though she took a few cautious steps back as the Beast continued its descent.

The Wolf dropped to the ground, standing hunched on its hind legs as its tail lashed behind it like an agitated cat.

"Enough, Sinding," she commanded, but the Wolf heeded neither her warning nor Sinding's futile attempts at regaining control. It had been so long since it had the sweet taste of manflesh in its mouth, and Sinding could feel its hunger and could do nothing to stop it. The Beast's heart beat an excited staccato in its chest and it leapt, claws extended and maw gaping, for its prey.

The Wolf was waylaid with neither iron sword nor ice magic. It was not rebuffed by the studded protection of armor, and it did not sink its teeth into the yielding pink flesh of a human. Instead, it was met by another set of claws as terrible and cutting as its own, thick wiry fur that cushioned the skin beneath it from the Beast's snapping jaws, and a snarl that held a deeper timbre than even the Thu'um. Startled and off-balance, the Wolf was thrown to the ground by its quarry. On its back, the Wolf stared up at the towering form of its kin. If not for the hastily shed armor puddled on the ground a few feet back, and the ragged scar that bisected the other Wolf's snarling face, Sinding might never know that it was the Dragonborn that stood before him.

Sinding seized the opportunity to regain control, wrenched his mind back as the Beast lay confused by the turn of events. The long muzzle began to recede, and the pointed ears, and soon the man lay surrounded by scattered piles of shed fur, his vision swimming and chest heaving as he tried to recover from the hard-won transformation. To his side, he heard the sharp gasps and keening whines as the Dragonborn returned to herself, until they both sat on the floor of the grotto, panting but otherwise silent.

"This was unexpected," Sinding finally said after they both had regained their faculties. He was not sure if he was referring to his inability to control his Wolf, or the Dragonborn's new secret.

"Agreed," she replied, rising from her nest of dark grey fur to slip her armor back on with shaking hands. "You'll have to give me some time to recover," she said after she was dressed, holding up her jittering hand. "I'm new to this, and the transformation still taxes me."

"How new?" he asked, rising up to his elbows to consider her.

The Dragonborn furrowed her brow, causing her scar to pucker and pull as she thought. "I'm not quite sure," she said finally. "Two months, perhaps more. I've been very busy of late, time has been passing in fits and spurts and it's getting harder to keep track of the days. I transform once a day if I can help it, and you know as well as any how your perceptions tend to skew when they're not truly your own."

Sinding swallowed past the lump in his throat and thought back to not minutes ago. "Yes, I'm quite familiar," he croaked before rising to his feet on steady legs. "Was this..." he faltered for a bit, watching as the Dragonborn struggled to buckle her pauldron. "Was this Hircine's punishment for not bringing him my hide?"

She looked up in surprise, took in his mournful eyes and nervous face, and shook her head, her blonde braids wagging furiously. "Not at all, my friend, neither you nor I have any quarrel with Hircine. He was...pleased with the outcome of our hunt. You don't need to worry about him anymore. My Wolf and I were paired on a very amicable basis, I assure you. Aela had-" she suddenly snapped her mouth shut with an audible clicking of teeth, wearing the face of a dog caught in the chicken coop. "I'm not sure I'm supposed to tell you these things," she admitted sheepishly.

"If you think I am so dull that I am unaware of the Wolves in Whiterun, you wound me to the quick," he said dryly. "I can smell that den at Jorrvaskr practically from here, and when those Companions pass on these trails on their way to some coin-grabbing job to rough up a dim-witted stableboy or some such rot, one might think someone loosed a brood of mead-soaked whelps onto the countryside."

Her face changed then, screwing up into a scowl with a glinting of teeth between her lips. Sinding had seen this look before, when they hunted together so many months ago, and to have it directed at him was instantly sobering. "That brood is my pack now," she said icily, "and I would sooner you hold your tongue than speak about them like that again. They are honorable warriors, and I am proud to share the beast-blood with them."

That explains the smell of so many Wolves on her, Sinding reasoned, though he could feel the knot of bitter jealousy forming in his chest. "I'm not sure why you would," he said with a derisive sniff, "but if you had wanted to be paired with a Wolf, you might have come to me. It's not as if I am hard to find."

Her eyes darted away from him. "I didn't know..." she paused to clear her throat, shifting her weight from foot to foot. "I didn't know it could be like this. I didn't know that mere mortals were capable of cooperation with a Beast. You were the first I met outside of a battle, and seeing how Hircine pulled your strings..."

His jaw went slack for a moment, but he regained himself in time to clack his mouth shut and turn his head away, irked at her insinuation. She didn't need to say why she didn't take the Blood from him, why she hadn't found it appealing until she met the Companions; with him, she saw the shredded remnants of a woodcutter's young daughter, saw him impotent and begging for help against a Hunt his master had called for his punishment, saw him constantly at odds and struggling for control against a brutal and unpredictable predator. And then she met the Companions, the Circle and their beast-blood, saw how they controlled their wolves, lived peaceably with them and harnessed their power, able to teach her how to control her's too, and suddenly he knew why she didn't come to him for the blood.

"-so important, it was so hard at first, and just being surrounded by your pack makes it easier," he heard her saying, and he shook off the fog of his reverie to find her talking. "They help, with everything, with the transformations and controlling your urges, with accepting the Blood. Please, Sinding, I know you think solitude is your answer, but maybe if you found others like us, they could help you."

"You came all this way to tell me to find a pack," he deadpanned.

"Yes, Sinding, because I know you struggle. Our Wolves are pack animals, and so are Men, so you being out here by yourself for months...it's only hurting you. If you satiated your needs, perhaps you'd find peace with your Wolf. Aela and Skjor say that's how to gain precise control of it, by embracing its nature. "

He briefly thought back to their reunion not an hour ago, when she had transformed to a Beast and back again in a flurry of moments, while to this day he struggled to dictate the terms of his own transformation. Her relationship with her Wolf was so new, and yet she had the iron precision that he knew could only come from the Wolf's full cooperation with its human. Control would be nice, after so many years of fear and panic and fighting. He thought of what he could do, of all the things he missed in his self-imposed exile; being able to walk in crowded town squares, sit in the firelight of a busy inn, haggle for goods at the market. He felt the rumble of the Wolf at the base of his skull and unbidden memories of Lavinia sprung to his mind and grasped his rapidly beating heart in the icy grip of panic. The Beast in crowded town squares, the Beast at a busy inn, the Beast set loose on the patrons of the market. As he saw his hopes dashed, however brief and fleeting they were, he became angry with the Dragonborn for making him think he could have any of it.

"You seem to know an awful lot for a whelp of a few months," he growled, feeling like he could spit acid and letting the venomous lance of fury buoy him as he pointed an accusing finger. "There is no controlling these Beasts, we are but the blood-hungry puppets of Hircine, and any semblance of control you may scrabble to grasp is just a game by the Huntsman. He will wrench it from your grip as soon as it pleases him, and you'll be left with someone else's blood on your hands, someone whose death you can't justify because they weren't a bandit or a necromancer or a savage, they were just a sweet, innocent girl sitting on a bench. The sooner you and your pack of drunken pups realize that we are cursed, not blessed, the sooner you can help yourselves and others by locking yourselves away like I have. I am not the dangerous one for denying my own nature, it is you who is dangerous for embracing it."

He saw the shadow of that snarl again, but it lacked the power behind it because her eyes were wide and wounded, as if she had been struck in the chest with an arrow. Her hands had balled into fists and still shook with faint tremors, though somehow Sinding knew it wasn't from the exertion of her earlier transformation. A long silence stretched between them as they stood staring at each other, nothing but the twittering birdsong and their breathing filling the space.

"I was a fool for thinking I might persuade you," she finally said, her voice strained with the exertion of staying her anger. "I hope that you will understand someday, before it's too late. I will take my leave before that precocious Wolf of yours gains the upper hand again, as you are wont for it to do." She turned away from him and began to pick her way back up to the mouth of the grotto. Before disappearing back into the open countryside of Falkreath, she turned back to him. "Until next time, friend," she said, her tone sweet but the bow and flourish she made with her frost-bitten hand was stilted. He grunted his reply and then she was gone, leaving only the echo of her footsteps.


	4. Chapter 4

The fourth time he met her, she was a woman.

Sinding had lost count of all time except for when it was morning and when it was night. For some time he had run through thick snow, tracked prey by the footprints they left in the chest-high drifts, so he knew another winter must have passed, and now the weather was warming and flowers and moss had begun to bloom so perhaps it was springtime, or perhaps it was a mild Skyrim summer. It was as the Dragonborn said-time is skewed when one is a Wolf, and Sinding thought he was spending more time cloaked in fur than he spent dressed in flesh.

This time when he tracked that scent to the mouth of the grotto, he was a man. That crackling smell of otherworldly fire burned in the back of his palate like an old friend and he rushed to meet his visitor, the first one he'd had since he could remember. She looked much the same as when they had split, though her armor was now of polished black metal and her braids were shorter where she had cut her hair. A new scar joined the large one on her face, this one a smaller knick that ran through her other eyebrow and left a patch of naked flesh in the middle of it. She had been wary when she entered the grotto, her sword in hand and a spike of razor-sharp ice in the other, but when he rounded the boulders and approached her with a blunt-toothed smile she relented and sheathed her weapons. She returned his smile and accepted his proffered hug, embracing briefly as she patted him heartily on the back with her ice-cold hand.

"Well met, friend," she said warmly, stepping back to see how his continued months of solitude had treated him. He tried not to squirm under her scrutiny, though he knew he looked a fright. He was still lean from the winter months, having only just started catching game regularly since the snow melted. He saw her smile waiver almost imperceptivity when she took in the slightly hunched back, the wild patches of coarse dark hair that had cropped up along his arms and in between the fair hair on his scalp, the fingers that looked half a knuckle too long and disjointed. The subtle signs of a Wolf who was slowly overtaking its host, though Sinding tried to dismiss them whenever he caught his own reflection in the stream.

He was afraid she'd say something to him about it, chastise him for not controlling himself better, but instead she slung her pack to the ground and rifled through it. "It was a very hard winter for most everybody," she said, procuring a sack burgeoning with food-smells and offering it to him. "I thought you'd enjoy food you didn't have to procure yourself. You're thin as a waif, Sinding." Her smile was easy and genuine as he picked through the sack she gave him. Crusty bread, hard cheeses, leeks and apples and salted meats. He salivated at the sight of it, such luxuries he missed from markets and traveling merchants, though his stomach roiled painfully in protest at the thought of anything but hot, wet flesh. He thanked her anyways.

They sat and talked, and he was eager to hear of news from the outside world. She told him of the civil war that still raged, of a resurgence of Vampires coming into towns and cities, of lesser gossip like the suitors who plagued Elisif's courts and which Jarls were allegedly bedding their court wizards. She told him, gently, that Mathies and Indara had welcomed a sweet baby boy into the world a few months ago. Sinding's heart simultaneously cheered and ached, and he asked her to give the couple his congratulations, though he knew she was smart enough to not do it.

"What has been happening here?" She asked, already knowing the answer, her eyes flickering briefly to rest on his alien hands before meeting his eyes again.

He swallowed dryly and cleared his throat, giving a noncommittal shrug. He wanted to tell her that he found a pack of roving Wolves, and that at first they had accepted him with open hearts, and that he had been banished not weeks later when they deemed his Wolf too aggressive, too willful, and his uncontrollable transformations too dangerous. He wanted to tell her that a few weeks ago he had tried to wean himself back into social interaction by talking with a mercenary that was walking the path near the grotto, and that he had awoken some hours later curled around twisted and shattered armor with his belly full of meat and his body smeared with blood. He wanted to tell her that the Beast was winning, and that he hated it and feared what would come of it. Instead, he said, "The usual, I suppose."

He knew she did not believe him for a second but she did not press the issue. She told him she had been named the Harbinger of the Companions after Kodlak's death, and he congratulated her.

"How is your pack doing?" He asked, trying to quell the resentment that he still felt when he thought of another Wolf inducting her into the beast-blood.

She laughed softly and shook her head. "All are more at peace than they've been in years, or so they tell me. Doing very well. Hardly a pack now though, I suppose. Skjor was taken by the Silver Hand too long ago, Vilkas and myself took the purity that was offered to us. That leaves Aela and Farkas with their Wolves, but they are best suited for it. Even Kodlak's soul rests easy now in Sovngarde, no longer called to the Hunting Grounds."

Sinding blinked owlishly at her. "P-purity?"

She stiffened a bit but nodded. "Perhaps that's the wrong word for it. We...we vanquished our Wolf spirits, and so cut our ties to Hircine. There's an absence where my Wolf used to be, and I occasionally miss it, but I rest easy knowing I'll share an eternity with my forefathers in Sovngarde."

He licked his suddenly dry lips. "Can...can you show me how?" His voice was barely above a whisper and he could hear the rush of his blood in his ears, or perhaps it was the low growl of the Beast.

She looked pained and shrugged, obviously regretting bringing it up in the first place. "I don't know, Sinding," she told him, "our Wolf spirits were able to manifest in the tomb of Ysgramor because we are Companions. I don't know if your Wolf could be coaxed out, it doesn't have any attachment to that place."

"We could try," he said hoarsely, his eyes wild and tinging on desperation as he grasped her arm in a too-tight grip. "We could just go, and see-"

"It's a hard journey," she said frankly, struggling to free herself from the grip of those too-long fingers. "It'll be a week, perhaps more, the cold that far North can freeze even Nord blood, not to mention the whisps, or the wraiths. And, by the Nine, those Wolves don't go down without a fight, Vilkas and I were nearly outmatched by his." She left the other part unsaid, the part that he could hear perfectly anyways. He was too weak, he would not survive the battle if he could even survive the travel. He wondered if that would be the worst fate for him. Nirn would be safer for it, if he left for the Hunting Grounds, and never again would he tear a child asunder or ambush some weary traveler on the road. His brain, addled by loneliness and the hot breath of his looming Beast, could hardly stand the implications.

"I want to try!" He said suddenly, savagely shaking her arm where he still held her in a vise grip. "I have to, I have to, have to. It'll be a miracle, I can finally get rid of this terrible monster. Please, please."

She finally pried her arm free and stood up, made wary by his desperation that he couldn't even hope to disguise. "You know I can't risk it," she said, her tone placating but her eyes fierce and unyielding. "I can't risk you or anyone else we meet. Gods, Sinding, if you let your Wolf turn you when we stopped in a city to restock, how many people do you think you'd kill before the guards put you down?"

"I won't let it turn me!" He promised, though it rang empty even in his own mind. "I won't let it! I can control it!" The bestial rumbling at the base of his skull was nearly deafening, a Wolf's laugh, as they both knew he was lying.

"You can't expect me to believe that, not after all this time," the Dragonborn said, all levity gone from her tone. "The Wolf has made you weak, Sinding, he's been making you weak since that day you killed Lavinia. He will do as he pleases, like you always let him do, and you know there's no way for you to stop it."

A flare of rage was all it took, the self-righteous anger that he felt explode in his chest at her frank chastisement even though he knew it was true. The Beast rode in on the wave, unobstructed, aching to fight, and suddenly Sinding felt himself pounce, looking at the Dragonborn through the filter of the Wolf's eyes as it latched onto her shoulder with its terrible teeth and collided with her, forcing her to fall to the ground with a cry.

He fought so weakly against the Wolf that he may have not been fighting at all. It had been so long since he'd try to control it, it'd been ages since he hadn't simply given in to the transformation when the Wolf decided it was time. He forgot how to call back control, and as he scrambled to regain his body, he felt the Beast snap and claw and scrabble with the Dragonborn as she tried to regain her footing. He felt the pain of an ice spear lance through the Wolf's shoulder, the hot rush of sweet blood as its maw clamped down on unprotected skin, but he could only paw in the dark like a blind man for some way to rein the Beast in.

It felt like an eternity but the Beast shed its fur and huddled in the back of their shared mind eventually, and Sinding thought he had won, had controlled the monster like he said he could. Lying in a bed of oily black fur, staring down the glimmering shaft of the Dragonborn's blade and feeling the burn bloody frostbitten wound on his face, he realized the Wolf had retreated when it knew he had been beat, and it was only by the Beast's own cowardice that Sinding was currently a man again. Sinding was as powerless as a newborn lamb over his own body, forever at the whim of Hircine's curse. He lay his head back and howled in agony that had nothing to do with his wounds.

"You're a monster," the Dragonborn huffed, her usually warm eyes cold as an ice-chip as she regarded him, sword still drawn. "You're a danger, and you're weak, and it's only a matter of time until you aren't anything the Wolf doesn't want you to be. I told you, Sinding, I warned you. You did this to yourself. If I see you outside of this cave, I will put you down. Until next time, Sinding." She had that snarl on her face, baring her teeth like the wolf she used to be, and left him sobbing pitifully in the dirt.


	5. Chapter 5

The fifth time he met her, she was an adversary.

It was almost as if the Wolf was punishing him for even considering purging it, for asking the Dragonborn to take him on an impossible task to kill the Beast once and for all. He could not remember the last time he had been a man, couldn't recall when he had the rational mind of a human at the forefront of his thoughts and not the vicious instincts of the Beast driving him. He was being held hostage in his own body, the Wolf always moving and hunting in its true form and never letting him shed the oily fur to walk in his own flesh. It was hellish.

The Wolf was like a parasite who had taken over its host, and it had relished in the freedom. It had taken some weeks for it to grow bored of ruling the grotto and had ventured out into the countryside. Dimly, Sinding remembered the day they had left the grotto behind, when the air was warm and smelled like honey. He thought it might have been summer. He couldn't recall how much time had lapsed between that day and today, just as he couldn't count how many cattle the Wolf had gorged on since then, or the travelers it tore in two, or the villages it had terrorized. One of hamlets that didn't find all its residents murdered and eaten must have gotten fed up, because while the Wolf waited to ambush two traveling mercenaries, Sinding heard them talking about it, the Wolf and its deeds, and about the handsome price its head would fetch, and how the Companions were already on it. He didn't hear much more than that, because the Beast pounced and silenced them forever with a single swipe of its paw.

He's not sure how it happened, things were so dim in the back part of the Beast's mind, and when he peered through the Beast's eyes everything seemed to happen in slow motion, as if the world had been dipped in honey and then left out in the cold. The Beast had been feeding on something- _someone,_ more likely, as it rarely satisfied itself with anything but human flesh these days-and then he felt the pain of an arrow pierce its tough hide, and when the Beast whirled on its attacker she was there, the Dragonborn, and some other Companion who was already nocking another arrow into her bow. The Dragonborn was saying something, he saw her mouth moving, but he couldn't hear anything through the sound of the Beast's ragged breathing. He strained and caught garbled whisps of her voice, and he swore he could feel the crackle of her scent in his nose.

"-warned you," he thought she was saying, though he couldn't be sure through the thick haze he heard it through. "Gods, Sinding, why does it have to be this way?"

Another arrow lodged in the Beast's thigh before it sprang into action, homing in on the Dragonborn, knowing she was the one it was never allowed to hunt before and knowing it wouldn't be interrupted by an unwelcome transformation again. Sinding tried to knock his way back in to his own mind, but he was so weak and so unaccustomed to the fight now that he tired quickly and sank back, watching the fight unfold in slow motion before him.

The archer had done away with her bow as soon as the Beast and the Dragonborn were engaged with each other and now brandished her own blade, something smaller but just as sharp. The Beast, for all the havoc it had wrought, was a predator who relied chiefly on ambush and trickery to gain its ends and quickly found that it was outdone by the two warriors who wielded blade and shield like it wielded its claws. Sinding felt the stinging burn of lacerations opening on the Beast's hide, heard its deafening yelp as it was pierced with cryomancy, and found himself strangely at peace. Perhaps the Hunting Grounds would not be so bad-would he know that he were a monster, if he was surrounded by monsters? He hoped not.

The Beast, knowing it was hopelessly outclassed, turned on his tail and fled, dropping to all fours to bound away. The Dragonborn raised up a cry behind it that quickly became inaudible as it nearly flew across the open plains, its gait awkward and bumbling from its wounds but no less swift. To Sinding it seemed like they ran forever, but it must not have been very far at all, because before the Beast could think to slow down and assess its wounds it was tackled down to the ground from behind. There was a scuffle, and Sinding felt to vise-grip of a jaw bearing down on the Beast's shoulders, and through the Beast's eyes he saw another Wolf tearing at him. There was no scar across its face, so it was not the Dragonborn—perhaps that other Companion that accompanied her, Sinding thought mutedly, the red-haired one that still smelled like a Wolf when the two women had first accosted him while he was eating.

He heard the Dragonborn's footsteps crunching rapidly through the tall dry grass of the plains and he soon saw her pale hair and her cool eyes and thought, for one moment, that he might be able to fight hard enough to seize control of the Wolf, to show her that he could do it. He mustered his strength, what little of it he had left after so long spent trapped in the back of the Wolf's brain, and gave a mighty push. He was rebuffed, as easily as a leaf on the wind, and sapped of his energy he huddled back down for the second time, watching powerlessly as the Dragonborn called into her blackened hand a razor-sliver of ice.

The Beast struggled against the grip of the Companion, but she had sunk her teeth deep into the meat of his shoulder and she dug her claws to the quick into his thigh, rendering his thrashing all but useless. Sinding strained to hear the Dragonborn as she choked on her words, that snarl on her face softened by her watering eyes. "Until next time," he heard her bite out, before he felt the bone-deep chill of the ice spear pierce the Wolf's chest and then blissful, blissful blackness.


End file.
